The Promise of American Life eBook

The American state is dedicated to such a duty, not
only by its democratic purpose, but by its national
tradition. So far as the former is concerned,
it is absurd and fatal to ask a popular majority to
respect the rights of a minority, when those rights
are interpreted so as seriously to hamper, if not
to forbid, the majority from obtaining the essential
condition of individual freedom and development—­viz.
the highest possible standard of living. But
this absurdity becomes really critical and dangerous,
in view of the fact that the American people, particularly
those of alien birth and descent, have been explicitly
promised economic freedom and prosperity. The
promise was made on the strength of what was believed
to be an inexhaustible store of natural opportunities;
and it will have to be kept even when those natural
resources are no longer to be had for the asking.
It is entirely possible, of course, that the promise
can never be kept,—­that its redemption
will prove to be beyond the patience, the power, and
the wisdom of the American people and their leaders;
but if it is not kept, the American commonwealth will
no longer continue to be a democracy.

IV

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALITY

We are now prepared, I hope, to venture upon a more
fruitful definition of democracy. The popular
definitions err in describing it in terms of its machinery
or of some partial political or economic object.
Democracy does not mean merely government by the people,
or majority rule, or universal suffrage. All
of these political forms or devices are a part of
its necessary organization; but the chief advantage
such methods of organization have is their tendency
to promote some salutary and formative purpose.
The really formative purpose is not exclusively a
matter of individual liberty, although it must give
individual liberty abundant scope. Neither is
it a matter of equal rights alone, although it must
always cherish the social bond which that principle
represents. The salutary and formative democratic
purpose consists in using the democratic organization
for the joint benefit of individual distinction and
social improvement.

To define the really democratic organization as one
which makes expressly and intentionally for individual
distinction and social improvement is nothing more
than a translation of the statement that such an organization
should make expressly and intentionally for the welfare
of the whole people. The whole people will always
consist of individuals, constituting small classes,
who demand special opportunities, and the mass of
the population who demand for their improvement more
generalized opportunities. At any particular time
or in any particular case, the improvement of the
smaller classes may conflict with that of the larger
class, but the conflict becomes permanent and irreconcilable
only when it is intensified by the lack of a really